


Brave

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:49:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23603350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Klinger steals a kiss outside of the O club and discovers that bravery has its rewards.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	Brave

It happened outside the officer’s club. Dizzied on one too many drinks, nerves jangled by the excuse for music queued up on the jukebox, Charles had escaped the smoke and the noise to drink down cool gulps of autumn air. If he looked hard at the moon through the frosted fringe of leaves, he could pretend he was in New England.

He didn’t notice he had company until he tripped over it. His arms shot forward to steady him and he ended up gripping Corporal Klinger like a lamppost in a lightning storm, desperation to stay upright outweighing everything else. Klinger steadied him with little fuss, helping his shoulders find the outer wall of the club. Dismayed at being so clumsy, Charles brushed off the shoulders of Klinger’s latest gown in apology. One hand lingered at the surprising feel of the fabric. “What are you wearing, Max? It looks like it ought to be as slippery as ice, but it feels like flower petals.”

“Sateen, sir. It’s mostly used for ribbons, but I decided to experiment.”

“Lovely and, luckily for me, sturdy, too.” He was still absently stroking the collar, looking down into Klinger’s face. He saw the corporal push back the veil of his hat beneath his helmet, but he never saw the kiss coming.

Shock ruled him; under its sway, he failed to terminate this soft, strange attempt at romance. Instead, Klinger drew back first, his face a mask of hopeful yearning that Winchester shattered with three words, “How dare you?”

Klinger tried to get something out, but that tone - imperious, superior, betrayed, cruel - had cut something inside; he seemed smaller; he buckled, drew into himself. The helmet was made of steel, but no one had tested it against Winchester rage which just rang right off of it before punching through.

Charles went on, anger swelling, sonorous syllables removing none of the sting from the insults he now heaped on the naked shoulders of the corporal who had dared too much. Klinger took the abuse without flinching, though the color drained from his face until it had nearly taken on the blue-white cast of the moon. By the time Winchester had finished, clear streams flowed over both of his cheeks.

To hide those tears, Klinger sank down, head in his hands, all coltish knees and elbows, metal helmet and pink feather boa: a GI Cinderella after the spell-shattering stroke of twelve. What was there to say? “Sorry, Major.”

Charles had told his tentmates never to take him for amiable, but his heart was a warm, human one for all that. He softened. He hadn’t meant to read Klinger the _entire_ riot act. In truth, he’d been off kilter since being stationed in Korea; this latest slip up - the literal fall, his failure to abort that kiss - was merely the latest symptom of how completely off balance his life had become.

He didn’t even feel sure of himself in surgery anymore! How could he with Pierce and Hunnicutt taking seconds to hack into and restore the bodies before them, scalpels moving like propeller blades, verbal volleys zipping back and forth over requests for bandages and suction? Even the old man, veteran of wars lesser and greater than their current conflict, was swifter than he! He didn’t belong here; Klinger’s stunning gaffe just emphasized it. He was angry at being a stranger in a strange land, cut off from all he loved, but he wasn’t really mad about the kiss.

“It’s alright, Klinger,” he said at last. “I take it this is your customary response in these situations?”

“No.” The man sounded miserable. “I mean sure, the guys make passes. Most are jokes, but not all of them. But I’ve never, I swear...”

Winchester felt a flicker of something like alarm. “And what, pray tell, made this instance different?"

“It’s you, Major.”

Alarm was overridden by offense. “Me? Are you saying that you see some evidence of this, this perverseness in me?”

“No.” He managed, somehow, to sound more miserable still. “I just wanted it to be true, I guess.”

If provocation was a fire in his heart, the hangdog look and sad-sack sound of a severely humbled corporal acted as a bucket of water. “Klinger please be clear. You’re saying you’re attracted to me?”

“Attracted.” He gave a bitter laugh. “That’s some gift for understatement, Major. I’m head over heels. And _I_ know heels. I... I’ve wanted you to kiss me since you got here.”

Charles was beyond flummoxed. He had met with many receptions upon his transfer to the 4077, but almost all had been tinged with some form of negativity. Even Potter had evaluated him like a work horse; he’d wanted him for his ability to take on burdens, to shift labor from the prized shoulders of Hunnicut and Pierce, not for himself.

“Temperature’s dropping,” he said abruptly. “This is no night to be out without a wrap.” He offered his arm. “Let me see you back.”

Klinger was grateful he wasn’t being drummed out on a dishonorable discharge; he’d told psychiatrist Sydney Friedman the truth: he didn’t consider himself a homosexual. He liked the attentions of both sexes. As for Charles- well, how was that _his_ fault? He hadn’t asked for this fine-talking, masterful specimen to be transferred to the 4077th with his thin, pink lips and his hands so perfect they seemed chiseled from pale stone. Granted, if Klinger had known there was a form for that, he _would_ have... but he hadn’t gone looking for him. And he never would have acted if Charles hadn’t gotten so enticingly close to his face; Klinger supposed that the silver lining was that his fantasies had gained a little source material.

He took the proffered arm. As they walked Charles commented, “I’d have thought with all the practice, you would be somewhat steadier on your chosen stilts, Corporal.”

Klinger tossed the dice. What the hell; he’d already kissed the man. “It isn’t the shoes, Major.” He extended the toe of one from beneath his skirts in order to demonstrate. “They aren’t really all that high. It’s how I always get around you. Wobbly.” He looked away, not wanting to see the effect of his confession on those stormy eyes. “You, uh, you wouldn’t notice, but I try not to be the one to bring instrument trays to your table in OR. I’m afraid to drop them.”

They had arrived at the door to Klinger’s tent. A wind-tormented fringe of fall foliage drooped from the window box. The flowers were fake, specks of glitter sparkling on satin petals, stolen from last year’s hats and dresses and pressed into the difficult service of gilding the grim world of dirt and screams and terror they were forced to occupy. Charles found himself sparing them a smile and opening the door for his companion, handing him through with a move he had mastered during cotillions and school dances.

Klinger was surprised when Winchester followed, taking the tent’s lone chair before curving two fingers in a come here gesture. Klinger went and was pulled down on his lap, skirts and all.

“M-major?” He could not disguise the tremor in his voice and didn’t bother to try.

“I feel we ought to have a discussion, you and I.”

The threat of discharge loomed again. Klinger wanted out of the army with a desire so intrinsic that it seemed to flare with every expansion of his lungs and echo every frightened thump of his heart, but he didn’t want to go cloaked in shame with no benefits to offer his family and a record that would make finding work nearly impossible.

“I _am_ sorry. I don’t know what else I can offer, sir.”

Charles seemed very stiff, almost brittle. “This isn’t one of your section 8 escapades?”

“Nossir.” The words ran together. Klinger was very aware that one of Charles’ hands was supporting his back.

“Klinger, I want you to look me in the eye and swear that this is not a trick, a scheme, or some similar form of chicanery to further your attempts to return to Toledo.”

The first part of his request proved the most difficult. Klinger had never found those piercing, perfect eyes with their overlong halo of dark lashes easy to bear, but he straightened up and stared headlong into them just the same, removing his helmet and hat to emphasize his sincerity. “Yessir.” The word was practically a whisper. “No trick, sir.” He had been impulsive - why would a Boston aristocrat want to kiss _him_!?- but honest.

“Hmmm.” Charles seemed to accept this. “So, what do I do with you now?”

Klinger bit his tongue for all he was worth, a dozen obscene suggestions bubbling to the surface of his brain.

“What do you want from me, Corporal?”

That cool, rolling tone made Klinger break out in shivers and simultaneously wicked the moisture from his mouth. _So much for all that talk about perverseness_ , he thought.

“Sir?”

“If you’re telling me the truth and this isn’t one of your plots, then you’ve thought about it. What have you imagined for us? What do you want from me?

Growing up, Klinger had read Andrew Lang’s fairy stories - the lilac fairy book, the yellow fairy book, etc. - and he was familiar with this tantalizing formula (one not completely absent from games of dice). Ask for too little and you’d regret your meekness when too little was all you received. Ask for too much and you’d be punished for greed. When the answer came to him, he blurted it out, “Stay with me tonight. Just one night. Hold me. Kiss me if you want to. I can make it on that for the rest of the war!”

Considering how cruelly he had spoken to the young man, Charles considered this a more than fair penance. Placing Klinger back on his feet, he secured the latch that acted as the tent’s privacy mechanism. He turned down the gas lantern and went to the cot. This time when he beckoned, Klinger hurried -still wobbling - to be taken into his arms. The corporal stepped out of his shoes and slid in beside him, fabric rustling. “A tight fit,” said Charles when Klinger was crushed against his chest, “but not an uncomfortable one, eh?” His free hand traced the side of Klinger’s face. “My, but you are trembling, man.”

It was true; his teeth even wanted to chatter and the tent wasn’t cold. “Never thought I’d...” He didn’t know how to say the rest, but Charles seemed to intuit some part of it. He tightened his hold against his shaking and murmured kind things into his neck.

Klinger wondered just what to think. Was he on the receiving end of some species of kindness taught only to the upper-crust? Or was Charles’ willingness to be this close a clear sign that he didn’t find him repulsive? What would have happened if he had replaced “hold me” with something more explicit? Would he be alone now or would they both be at least half undressed?

Charles was the one to shift them in the darkness. He placed Klinger on his back, one arm still beneath him, and lay over him, looking down into his face. Klinger heard his petticoats crinkling under the weight of another body; it was a delicious and delicate sound. He wanted to hold it in his ears, but his eyes were too filled with Charles who was once again far too near.

Klinger couldn’t help it. “Careful, Major. Last time you got that close, I upset you.”

“Ah, but you gave me permission, remember?” Klinger’s rising moan was muffled by the press of his mouth.

When he could speak again, his legs had been flung akimbo. His stockings seemed to have spontaneously unrolled and he was breathing so hard that if he was wearing a corset, it would have been damaged.

“Thought you wanted me to _stop_ trembling.”

“Ask any physician, Klinger. Some things must be made to reach a pitch before they subside.”

Having spoken authoritatively, Winchester stood and undid his belt. He stepped out of his pants and began on his shirt buttons. His jacket was sloughed to the floor. Klinger made a frantic gesture. “Let me.”

Charles permitted the attentions of his quick fingers, approving of the way Klinger caressed his chest under the guise of unbuttoning the shirt. Shirt open, he backed the corporal up against the bed again. Klinger was still clothed, but Charles made sure he could feel everything. Klinger responded with tiny sounds that did more for Charles than he would have been willing to admit. The physician bore down on him hard enough to hurt... or maybe his need hurt him, intense and unexpected as it was.

He guided Klinger’s hand around him. _Take me_ , that touch said. _Take anything you want_. Klinger’s early words proved true; he hadn’t done this before. His touches were hesitant and he sometimes closed his eyes, dark lashes like star points on his cheeks, as if to feel more deeply. Charles let him learn and stayed perfectly silent so that he could drink in the sound of Klinger’s frayed breathing.

They found a rhythm together- Klinger pumping him, thumb darting out to trace the flared ridge of the head, to glide over the leaking slit - Charles timing the movement of his hips to match.

Winchester didn’t intend to be greedy, but if he’d tripped outside the officer’s club, he’d well and truly fallen now - into the small, tight circle created by Klinger’s fingers and thumb. Klinger’s gasps tore holes in the deep, sweet dark and Charles wanted to live inside of them, exalting in the echoes.

He was a gentleman, however. He surfaced from the insistent surge of pleasure dragging him down to pin those clever hands, stilling them for a moment.

Klinger’s eyes were wide and worried. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not ‘tall,” Charles assured him with a smile and that singular accent of his. “I merely wished to slow things down.” _And see to you_ , he thought. Getting Klinger where he wanted him required a certain amount of manipulation. Charles kissed him into distraction and took advantage of his closed eyes to position him in his lap. Those eyes flew open, of course, the minute he reached beneath his skirts.

“It’s alright,” Charles soothed, gently navigating to his prize.

Klinger thrashed a little. “Major, I can’t even touch you like this!”

Charles moved beneath him. “But you can feel me, can you not? Feel what you’re doing to me?”

He could - and suspected that he still could have even if he was wearing every petticoat in his tent. I _might be dressed a little like a princess_ , he thought, _but that’s no pea, Major!_

Watching his face, his dark eyes that he hoped to make darker still, Charles enclosed him and leaned over to kiss him at the same time; the motions of his tongue echoed what his hand was doing underneath Klinger’s skirts. His hope was that if he did everything right, they wouldn’t be able to kiss long; Klinger would need his mouth to breathe the way Charles was winding him up, and he hoped he might make him do more than pant. The longtime melophile wanted audible evidence of the slighter man’s pleasure, a personal soundtrack he could replay inside of his mind.

He got just what he wanted when Klinger wrenched his head free and moaned. Having lost his mouth, Charles kissed his neck instead and felt his pulse thrash like wings under the thin skin there. Klinger’s hands clutched at what he could reach - his shoulders, his chest - even as he rocked under his touch.

“Major...”

Winchester laughed at the unexpected endearment; his title had never sounded so good. “I’m quite without my clusters, Max, as well as everything else.” His grip tightened. “Though if you wish to continue saluting me in this manner, by all means.”

Klinger wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or scream. Had Boston’s winters given Winchester so cool a center that he could joke at such a time, unaffected? How was he able to string all those words together? Klinger just buried his face in his chest and groaned.

Pleased at this evidence of conquest, Winchester lessened the number of folds between them until Klinger could feel the heat of him and began stroking in earnest again. As the end built in him, Klinger found his voice. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying, but it seemed to be conveying the proper sentiments. Winchester’s perfect rhythm was becoming deliciously ragged and his hips were pumping as quickly as Klinger’s were.

When the corporal’s back arched, tendons in his neck going tight, hips snapping forward, Charles was right behind him (in literal position as well as in timing). Their gasps mingled together on the night air.

Klinger had never been so glad to be held in his entire life; whole groups of muscles seemed to have called off duty to prolong their bliss.

“It seems I may owe you a new dress,” Charles said eventually. He sounded almost bashful. “I didn’t mean to permit myself to be so overcome.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Klinger was surprised to hear that his voice was harsh from all the noise he’d been making. “It can retire and be an around-the-tent dress.”

Charles worked a bit of the fabric between his fingers, relishing the feel. He remembered touching it outside of the club and wondered that they could have come so very far on a stolen kiss in the dark.

“I won’t be able to wear it out now anyway,” Klinger admitted, eyes lowered. “Every time I put it on, I’ll think of you. Guard duty’s hard enough without being asked if I’m carrying a rifle _under_ my clothes.”

Charles shook his head. “You truly are something, Corporal.”

“So I’ve been told. Right now, though, I’d settle for being something to _you_.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere, I can assure you. One night. I gave you my word as a Winchester.”

When they were cleaned up and wrapped up together, Klinger dared to begin, “Major,”

“Klinger,” Charles interrupted, “you’re in my arms. I’m more exposed than I get even in the _showers_ ,” (it paid to wear shoes in a country known for skin diseases and serpents). “You might do me the favor of calling me by my given name.”

“Sorry, Charles.”

Winchester kissed him on his nose. “Quite alright. I just like hearing you say it.”

Klinger drew a breath and steeled himself. “Are you going to _keep_ liking to hear it, though?”

“Maxwell!” He was thoroughly insulted. “What do you take me for?”

“That’s just it, Charles.” _I’d like to take you. I’d **love** for you to take me, but_... “I don’t know!”

“As in, you do not know, now, how you feel about me?”

Klinger couldn’t help but admire the man in that moment. He was as vulnerable as a person could be, but he faced the possibility of pain openly, unflinching. “That’s not it at all! Didn’t you _hear_ me before? It’s just _fast_ , you know? You seemed sore as hell about that kiss and now... I’m not sorry for what happened between us, but I turned down all the offers that came before you because I can’t go to bed with somebody and leave my heart on the nightstand.”

Winchester nodded him on and Klinger decided it was probably best to say all of it. His own particular species of bravery, however ill-advised, had seen him this far.

“The thing is, you already had my heart, even if you didn’t know it. Now you’ve got everything else, too.” _And_ , his eyes added, _I’m more than a little worried you might bust up the whole lot by booting me out in the morning_. “I know I said I could make it on one night, but after all that... I really don’t want to.”

“Max, why do you think I asked you to swear that you weren’t going to go to Potter with some wild story about us?”

There were several possible reasons. Winchester wanted a dishonorable discharge no more than Klinger did. He had a reputation, too, that wouldn’t benefit from the labels typically applied to the acts in which they’d just engaged. Maybe he just didn’t want to be incorporated into Klinger’s latest machination.

“I don’t know.”

“Because there was no way I was getting into bed with you if your feelings were anything but completely sincere. I don’t easily welcome anyone into my life. Did you really think I might have my fun with you and set you aside?”

Klinger beamed. “So you will...? So this is...?”

“I’m yours, yes. Thank you for taking the chance, Maxwell.” He smoothed Klinger’s hair back from his face. “And thank you for forgiving my earlier words. You scared me worse than the war does... but I am glad of it.”

Quiet in his arms, Klinger slipped contentedly into the sleep of the brave.

End!

**Author's Note:**

> I know this isn't a popular pairing, but I'm having a lot of fun writing them. If you want to talk stories or have an idea you'd like me to try out, please drop me a line in the comments. I promise it will brighten my day!


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